i don't know how many of you have read/seen the LA times magazine this week, but it has an article on a girl named cory kennedy. coincidentally, she is from southern california like i am, and even more coincidentally, her best friend/business partner went to high school with sarikayla.
anyway, cory kennedy is a 16 year old pseudo celebrity with a blog, myspace, and fansites all over europe, documenting her status as a "fashion icon," and socialite. she is essentially the 16 year old paris hilton (whom, coincidentially, she has been photographed with numerous times).
She was "discovered" at 15 when the photographer for a blog The Cobra Snake took her picture at a concert, and since then has exploded all over the web. on her myspace, people study and emulate her style and look even down to the broken capallaries beneath her right eye.
I know it may be too late, but I am bringing up this topic not only as a blog but also because I now want to change it to my paper topic. I am intrigued by how the internet can bring such fame to everyday people, and how celebrity icons are created by the fact that everyone is watching everyone all the time. I understand though if it is too late to change my topic.
Out of curiosity...why is she more popular all over Europe than in the US?
I am so curious to know why people are FASCINATED with celebrities!!! (Yes, I admit to having my fair share of interest in knowing what Nicole Kidman wore to the Academy Awards, what Britney looks like when she attacks a car with an umbrella , and why Mischa Barton looks like she’s always wearing the clothes of a 90-year old woman.)
I think not only are the blogs interesting, but I think the new media technologies that have enabled people to stalk celebrities are really illuminative of McLuhan’s “The Medium is the Message;” it seems that it doesn’t matter what is being said on these blogs (I mean, come on, it’s pretty much always the same . . . So-and-So gained 3.5 pounds eating a Snickers, and So-and-So has a phobia of pandas).
How are these new instantaneous media impacting how we view the world? And how have they allowed the cult of the celebrity to fully rise to pop culture scale?
If this turns out to be your new paper topic, you might want to talk to BenManTheEvil who's going to "tackle LonelyGirl" to compare findings. The two projects would be fascinating side by side to see how the web-driven obsession with a real person compares to the web-driven obsession with a fake character.
The other thing this reminds me of is the fascination with Ellen Feiss five years ago after her debut in an Apple ad. Read more about that here. Crazy stuff.
I can sort of understand why people are so totally into following the lives of celebrities.
Most of the time they're beautiful people, and don't we just love looking at those pretty faces. I also feel like they make life look so glamorous, and what mistakes they make are dramatized so they are seemingly somehow 'more,' more and better than our own normal, pedestrian lives.
What I don't understand is why anyone would be interested in just anyone off the street. How voyeuristic are we anyway?